Trump’s Gaza plan rejected by allies and adversaries
US President Donald Trump’s radical idea to “take over” the Gaza Strip and create a “Riveria” of the Middle East has been condemned by stunned leaders around the world.
The suggestion came at a White House news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who looked pleased as the President detailed the plan.
It involves building new settlements for Palestinians outside the Gaza Strip, and the US taking “ownership” in redeveloping the war-torn territory into “the Riviera of the Middle East”.
“The US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too,” Trump said.
“We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site, and get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out, create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs.”
Netanyahu said Trump was “thinking outside the box with fresh ideas” and was “showing willingness to puncture conventional thinking”.
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The comments came amid a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, during which the militant group has turned over hostages in exchange for the release of prisoners held by Israel.
Trump has already made waves — and upset long-time allies — suggesting the purchase of Greenland, annexation of Canada and possible takeover of the Panama Canal.
In the US, opposition politicians quickly rejected Trump’s Gaza idea, with Democratic Senator Chris Coons calling his comments “offensive and insane and dangerous and foolish.”
The idea “risks the rest of the world thinking that we are an unbalanced and unreliable partner because our President makes insane proposals”, Coons said.
Senior Hamas Official Sami Abu Zuhri said the call for Gazans to leave was “expulsion from their land”, and the plans would generate “chaos and tension in the region”.
“Our people in the Gaza Strip will not allow these plans to pass, and what is required is to end the [Israeli] occupation and aggression against our people, not to expel them from their land.”
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said it was unacceptable and would lead to more conflict.
The Saudi Arabian Foreign Ministry rejected any attempts to displace the Palestinians.
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British Environment Minister Steve Reed said Palestinian civilians must be able to return to their homes and rebuild their lives.
Democratic US Senator Chris Van Hollen said Trump’s proposal was “ethnic cleansing by another name”.
Egypt, Jordan and other American allies in the Middle East have previously rejected the idea of relocating more than two million Palestinians from Gaza.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Australia had long supported a two-state solution in the Middle East and nothing had changed.
“Australia’s position is the same as it was this morning, as it was last year, as it was 10 years ago,” he said.
New Zealand’s Foreign Ministry said its “long-standing support for a two-state solution is on the record” and added that it, too, “won’t be commenting on every proposal that is put forward”.
In its attack on Israel, Hamas killed some 1200 people, primarily civilians, and took about 250 hostages.
Israel’s ensuing air and ground war has killed more than 47,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to local health authorities.
The war has left large parts of several cities in ruins and displaced about 90 per cent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people.
– with agencies
